“Well--well--if I am too presumptuous in supposing anything I say to be likely to move you;” Huntley went on, with a restrained smile--“but you really must not do Miss Crediton injustice through any clumsiness of mine. It came about in the most natural way. She was afraid there had been some little sparring between her father and yourself, and was anxious, as in her position it was so natural to be----” “Exactly,” said John. “Are you on your way home now, or are you going back to Fernwood? I should ask you to take a little parcel for me if you were likely to be near Fanshawe. How are the birds? I don’t suppose I shall do them much harm this year.” “Oh, they’re plentiful enough,” said Huntley; “my father has the house full, and I am not much of a shot, you know. They would be charmed to see you if you would go over for a day or two. I mean to make a run to Switzerland, myself. Vaughan has some wonderful expedition on hand--up the Matterhorn, or something--and I should like to be on the spot.” “Shall you go up with him?” said John. “Not I, but I should like to be at hand to pick up what remains of him if he comes to grief--and to share his triumph, of course, if he succeeds,” Fred added, with a laugh--“a friend’s privilege. Are you going?--it is scarcely ten o’clock.” “You forget I am a man of business nowadays,” said John, with an uncomfortable smile; and then they stood over the table, facing but not looking at each other; a suppressed resentment and excitement possessing one, which he was doing his utmost to restrain--and the other embarrassed, with a mixture of charitable vexation and malicious pleasure in the effect he had produced.